| WHAT WE DO: | ||
| + | Agriculture & Environment: Increasing crop production, training farmer marketing groups, producing high-quality seed. | |
| + | Child Development & Education: Education support program, training teachers, distribution of school materials, rehabilitation of school structures. | |
| + | Church Development: Pastors trainings, truth-based messaging, leadership development. | |
| + | Emergency Relief: Emergency flood and drought relief. | |
| + | Economic Development & Livelihoods: Business development, savings groups. | |
| + | Health & Nutrition: Nutrition education, zinc project to reduce affects of diarrhea. | |
| + | HIV/AIDS: Abstinence and be faithful messaging, home-based care, awareness, food provisions, school materials. | |
There is an invisible line cutting across our world. We're not talking latitude or longitude.
This is a line that makes the difference between disease prevention and premature death. A line that determines if your children will be attending school or if they will be undernourished. A worldwide line that one in four people live under.
This is the line of poverty.
In Mozambique, nearly 40% of the population lives under the poverty line. This means that seven million people are making less than $1 a day. It means seven million people lack access to medical care, education, clean water, and expendable income in times of emergencies.
What if there was a way to move that line. Or even, to erase it?
Working together with community leaders, FH has begun over 100 local savings and credit groups in rural Mozambique. These savings and credit groups are allowing people once labeled "poor" and "vulnerable" to reclaim dignity, to have access to loans, to begin small business, and to have the means to provide for their families and save for their futures.
Before the founding of savings and credit groups most people in rural communities didn't have access to loans, and those who did were charged 50% interest during repayment. Now, as members of local savings groups, all participants can borrow with a 10% interest rate, opening up countless opportunities for small business development and significant return on their investments.
Once poor communities are now seeing trade happening, shops opening, and businesses developing.
Change has come.
It wasn't from hand outs. It wasn't from top down development. Change is happening in Mozambique because of mothers, fathers, mayors, and pastors, who are choosing to work together, trust each other, and invest in their communities. Through savings and credit groups Mozambicans are finding a way to cross over this poverty line, and it's beginning to disappear.
+ FH HISTORY:
FH has been implementing relief and rehabilitation programs in Mozambique
since 1987 and has since successfully transitioned its focus to sustainable
development, focusing on agriculture, marketing, savings groups, community
capacity building, nutrition, and health. Since 2005, FH has expanded
its programmatic areas to include HIV prevention, care, and child survival.
+ MOZAMBIQUE'S
HISTORY:
Mozambique’s first settlers were the San people, a hunter/gatherer
group who were followed in 100-400 A.D. by a migration of Bantu tribes
from the north. The Portuguese arrived in 1498 and were granted full colonial
rule in 1894. Mozambique’s local African population and her natural
resources, particularly gold mines, sugar and copra plantations, endured
significant exploitation and abuse during Portugal’s colonization.
As Mozambique’s African inhabitants were subjected to harsh conditions,
punitive law, and restricted rights, Portuguese settlers were encouraged
to immigrate with the promise of economic opportunity and business development.
By 1962, indigenous Mozambicans, living as exiles in Tanganyika, formed
Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) and
began demanding liberation through guerilla warfare. Civil war continued
for over a decade, from 1964-1975, ending with independence. At that time
nearly all the 300,000 Portuguese residents fled, leaving Mozambique with
limited national capacity and at risk of economic collapse.
As the socialist regime led by Frelimo grew in power, opposition also
grew, resulting in war between Frelimo and the resistance movement RENAMO.
Sixteen years of civil war followed, leaving one million dead, one quarter
of the population dependent on international food aid, and another million
displaced in surrounding countries.
The end of the Cold War brought change to Mozambique, including the signing
of a 1992 peace treaty and its first multi-party elections. Three multi-party
elections have followed suit, all being won by Frelimo. While relative
peace has been maintained, Mozambicans continue to live in extreme poverty,
now battling the AIDS epidemic, and its effect on the economic sector.
FACTS:
+ A ceasefire signed in 1992 ended a sixteen year civil war that devastated Mozambique’s economy and infrastructure leaving it one of the world’s poorest countries.
+ The average Mozambican has less than a 50% chance of reaching age 40.
+ Mozambique is one of the top ten countries affected by HIV/AIDS, with 16.2% of the population aged 15-49 testing HIV positive
+ Mozambique has three doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants.
+ Yearly droughts and floods affect hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans, generating persistent food insecurity.
+ Facts From: IRIN, CIA, The World Factbook, UNHCR, UNICEF.
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